The Other Side of the Door
by wolfchic011
Summary: I remember the day it all started. The day I moved out. Anna and I had shared a room practically since she'd been born. But that life was no longer possible. Elsa's POV during all those years Anna kept knocking on her door asking her to build a snowman. One-shot.


As the name implies, this is what was happening inside Elsa's room during the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman". I freaking love this song so much, it always makes me cry and want to hug my sister…

*sniff* I'm not crying…oh who am I kidding?

* * *

_The Other Side of the Door_

I remember the day it all started. The day I moved out. Anna and I had shared a room practically since she'd been born. We'd done everything together: lessons, playtime, secret midnight feasts. She always woke me up early to play, snuggled into bed with me late at night to listen to my stories or beg me to make her pretty snowflakes.

But that life was no longer possible.

As the movers left, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Anna rounded the corner and saw me standing in the doorway of my new room. She paused, not understanding. No one had told her why I'd moved out. No one ever would. Her gaze caught mine for a moment. Then I closed the door.

Sleep did not come easily that night. The room felt much too big, much too empty. I kept thinking about Anna, all by herself in an equally empty room. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Was she as lonely as I was?

Probably more so. Anna was so much more dependent on me then I was on her. She was always the one to ask me to play, to beg me to spend time with her and build her snowmen…

I gripped my head tightly. No more snowmen. Anna couldn't know. I had to keep her safe.

But…I uncovered my head. Keeping her safe didn't mean I couldn't see her right? It didn't mean I couldn't offer her a hug and a midnight cup of cocoa to help her go to sleep right?

I threw off my covers and quietly opened my door. How many times had I done this with Anna? No one was in the hallway, the castle was silent.

I'd never done this alone. I slid down the banister of the grand staircase to avoid making any noise. I avoided the ballroom entirely. Getting into the kitchens was the easy part, reaching the cocoa and boiling the water was the hard part. But no one caught me, nothing spilled and within a few minutes, I was slowly making my way back up the stairs with a steaming mug in my hands.

I went back down the hall towards my old room, carefully balancing the mug of hot cocoa in my hands. I had to make sure Anna was alright and I was going to tell her everything would be okay. I'd be busier but I still cared about her. She was still my best buddy. I'd always care about her.

Silently, balancing the mug in my left hand, I pushed open the door that used to be ours.

"Anna." I whispered into the room. It was still and quiet, the moonlight illuminating the floor in patches. Was this how she felt every time she'd woken me up to play?

She was curled up in fetal position on the bed. Anna never did that. She always slept sprawled out flat, her hair spilling out across her pillows. She only ever curled up when she cried.

I bit my lip as a whimper escaped me. Anna had cried herself to sleep, alone. Because I hadn't been there.

Apparently my sound was louder then I had intended it to be. Anna began to stir.

"Who's there?" She called sleepily. "Elsa?" The mug in my hands had iced over. The cocoa was a solid, undrinkable block.

Panic shot through me. I was going to lose control, Anna was going to see. I ducked out, dropping the mug where it fell and leaving the door ajar in my haste. I ran back to my room, a thin trail of ice following me.

* * *

Mama and papa spoke to Anna and me separately. They had told my sister that I needed to be left alone. That I had many important things to do to prepare for the day I would become Queen. Anna didn't bother me as the days dragged into weeks. She said nothing about the mug of cocoa on her floor.

A few months later, at the first snow, Anna sought me out for the first time in forever.

"Elsa?" Anna called through the door. This was followed by a rhythmic knock. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

I didn't answer her question, I was sitting by my window watching the snow fall, trying my best to ignore her and failing miserably. "Come on, let's go and play!" Anna called. "I never see you anymore, come out the door, it's like you've gone away!" I drew my knees into my chest as her eye peeked under the door, looking for me. "We used to be best buddies…and now we're not. I wish you would tell me why…Do you wanna build a snowman?" Her voice was suddenly louder, she had pressed her lips against the keyhole. "it doesn't have to be a snowman…"

She was getting too close, the air around me had gone cold and wet. "Go away Anna." I snapped.

There was a moment of silence from the other side of the door. "…Okay, bye…" Anna finally said, sounding terribly sad.

It took all of my self control not to rip open the door and pull her into a hug. Instead the floor around me gained a thin coat of ice and I spent several minutes crying.

Why had I been so mean? She was just trying to get me to talk to her. Why hadn't I just talked to her? Told her I wasn't able to play right now? The ice spread further, thickening. I flinched away from it.

No, this had to be immediate or it wouldn't work. She had to know right away that we couldn't be close anymore. I was dangerous and she was in danger. I missed her so much.

I sat there all day, miserable, watching the ice melt and refreeze as the conflicting emotions ran through me.

* * *

Several years passed. The castle remained sealed to the outside. My lessons continued as papa sought to teach me everything I needed to know to succeed him. My fear grew as my powers became even stronger.

The knocks on my door were a regular occurrence now. The greeting had become a source of pain and sadness. A reminder that there was no way we could return to the carefree relationship of our childhood.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?" She always asked that question, even if it was the middle of summer. It was like she didn't understand. Some part of her still retained the knowledge that even in the hottest summer nights, I could make her a winter wonderland in our ballroom.

"Or ride our bike around the halls?" Anna was saying on this particular day.

I had spent all day reviewing trade agreements between Arendelle and the Southern Isles. Needless to say it was boring work. There were books covering every inch of my floor, piled on top of those were papers with all of my calculations. My head was spinning and my gloves were stained with ink from the hours of work I'd put in today. They lay on top of _A History of Arendelle Exports._

Anna's visit had burst into my life like a blast of heat. She continued to tell me about her day: talking to the paintings on the walls, wandering through the empty rooms, watching the hours tick by…

Basically everything I did only alone in my room.

My hand twitched towards the doorknob. A smile was pulling at my face for the first time all day.

I wanted nothing more than to open the door, to say yes, to get OUT OF THIS ROOM!

My feet had carried me to the door before I realized what I was doing. The doorknob had iced over where my fingers brushed it. I slumped to the floor, sending a small pile of my papers cascading across the sea of books. I clutched the hand to my chest.

We were both so lonely but we couldn't reach out to each other. I had to stay alone.

But Anna hadn't given up on me. Not yet.

* * *

"I'm scared…" I was trembling, my hands were drenched in icy water. I gestured at the floor around me, which was coated in a thick frost. "It's getting stronger!" Shards of ice were climbing up the walls behind me. I didn't even know what had set it off this time. Anna had been knocking on my door asking to build a snowman in the middle of spring and suddenly ice had begun creeping up the walls. The gloves had done nothing. They were wet and cold, clinging heavily to my hands.

"Getting upset only makes it worse…" Father said gently. He'd come running at my screams, mother not far behind. "Calm down." He reached out as if to take my hands.

"NO! Don't touch me!" I shouted, backing away from him, my hands tight against my chest. "…please… I don't want to hurt you."

The looks on both their faces made my heart clench.

They were afraid of me. Of their eleven year old daughter with a power she couldn't control.

* * *

The years passed and gradually the knocks became fewer and further between. Anna and I had a few lessons together and occasionally shared a few meals but there was always a wall between us. I couldn't look at her without seeing the white stripe in her hair. The memento of the past we'd once had.

Mama and Papa tried their best to get us all to spend some time together but even they knew there had to be some permanent boundaries. They knew the days when I just couldn't handle seeing anyone, days when the ice seeped out from under the gloves. Those were the days they let me hide in my room and made excuses for me.

Anna no longer questioned the days when I had to shut myself away. They had become part of our lives. Normal.

I no longer wished that I'd wake up one day without my gift. I no longer dreamed I had my powers under control. I had learned to live with the silence, the pain, the loneliness.

It was a cool autumn day when father and mother left for Weselton for a banquet. Anna was fifteen, I was eighteen.

I curtsied goodbye to them as they left the palace. Neither of them had touched me since the incident when I was eleven. Fulfilling my wish to be alone, to avoid all contact. "Do you have to go?" I asked. I was terrified of being alone. What if I lost control?

They both smiled. "You'll be fine Elsa." Father told me.

It was the last thing he ever said to me.

* * *

When news reached Arendelle that the _Northern Light_ had gone down in a storm, my heart shattered. It took all the self control I'd learned over the past eleven years not to let it all go.

I didn't go to the memorial service, instead Anna went alone. She stood at their empty graves in black and bid them farewell. I wanted to go. I wanted to say goodbye. But I couldn't leave my room. The air all around me was still and frozen, hung with glittering ice crystals and snowflakes as tears ran down my face. I feared if I moved, the cold would burst from me in a great wave, freezing everything in sight. I couldn't let that happen. My protective barrier against the world had crumbled. My parents were gone now, the only thing protecting the kingdom, protecting my sister was me.

So I waited, my back against the door. The inevitable knock came as the sun was setting.

"Elsa?" I reflexively curled in on myself at Anna's timid call.

"Please, I know you're in there." She called. "People are asking where you've been. They say have courage, and I'm trying to. I'm right out here for you, just let me in…" I heard her body fall against the door. I imagined her sliding down to sit outside my closed door. The same way she had as a child. "We only have each other, it's just you and me, what are we gonna do?"

There was a moment of silence between us. Then Anna's tearful voice spoke up again."Do you wanna build a snowman?"

It was late autumn.

I curled in on myself, listening to Anna's quiet sobs on the other side of the door as tears rolled down my cheeks. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to cry with her. But I couldn't.

She wanted so badly to be there for me, the sister who had held her at arm's length for most of her life.

I wanted to be strong enough this time. To be able to throw open the door and comfort her. To hold back the ice long enough that I would be able to hold her again, offer her solace and maybe receive some in return. To be able to mourn our parents together, comforting each other. But even this time, it wasn't enough. Why couldn't I open that stupid door?

Eleven years of separation had built up the wall. I could no longer physically break it down.

All I could do was press my back against the door and muffle my sobs so she wouldn't know how much pain I was in. I feared I was no longer able to give comfort. My heart had cooled and hardened into a tiny sliver of ice. If anyone were to touch that sliver, they would freeze into an ice statue. I was beyond comfort.

That was the last time Anna knocked on my door.

* * *

Thanks for reading. I need to go find my sister now...

Peace!

wolfchic011

12/23/13


End file.
